The Red Mage could be more fun, my incentives for it

The job of the Red Mage is basically a great idea, but not well implemented in the gameplay.

For me, it clearly lacks more reference to a lively melee-magic ratio in a reasonable switching system. Also, it's quite dry and a bit tough to play.

My ideas would be:

1. the Red Mage Meele charger

This Red Mage version, switches from white/black magic charging via spells, to two melee chains.
One for black magic charging, the other for white magic.
These are nimble combat styles that are faster to get through, don't do as much damage, but replenish mana faster.

Then the Red Mage jumps away from the enemy, as a starting function for the magic phase, and uses up the accumulated magic in powerful spells.
What should not consume the accumulated magic too quickly, however, so that the ratio of time between close combat and magical ranged combat remains in the average.
At last he performs a final attack which makes him dash to the enemy again and consumes a magical charge in melee which can be used as another melee chain.

Depending on which magic form you start the chain with, you can perform 2 different types of final chains and as a bonus trigger a selfbuff separated by the magic type you used as final attack. It overwrites the standard build chains.
So white magic can be protective for the group, black magic can steal life or something.
This starts the build up chain again.

This should make for a more splashy experience. Especially because you also unite 2 clear power positions, but clearly felt also separate and the melee is carried out much more often, once as a building factor for all sorts of cool range magic and secondly as a final conclusion, which also gives again the entry into the melee to the nimble build-up chain and the whole with optional buffs / debuffs etc..

2. the Red Mage as magic charger

If you want to leave the Red Mage as basically a mage, so that he recharges the melee on the side Final, you can't get around making the melee available faster and the spellcasters less ticklish, but lowering the damage everywhere a bit, so that it finally turns out the same, just a bit more exciting.

However, there should be no "wait for global cooldown" with the spells here. That is very choppy to play or not round. It also seems quite monotonous to use your spells for a miserably long time, only to finally jump into the melee and start fighting.

This is an area that needs some fundamental tweaking.

For one thing, it shouldn't feel like you're currently just working like a mana battery here. Casting push to then quickly shoot black or white magic over it, wait for the CD, cast push and everything else is the same, only that when you procc through push instead of the standard spell, then take the procc based spell, does not enhance the gameplay.
You just long to finally get into melee to have some action and interrupt this mononony.

The magic phase in that case needs to be basically transformed so that it's much more fun and doesn't feel like a monotonous loop to recharge.
It needs to feel like that's the main component and the charge is the side effect that just happens, to then clearly get the signal to now take down the full charge and a melee battle to then switch back to the main aspect, range magic.

This variation of the Red Mage, clearly makes it a heavily range magic job that feels much much more like a pure caster that can just still handle a stabbing weapon a bit.

Alternatively, you can equip the spell charger with a balance magic bar. This starts in the middle at 0 and swings in one direction or the other depending on the combat phase.
E.g. in the magic phase the bar swings to the left. The more it tilts to the left, i.e. the more you cast magic, the stronger the melee becomes and the magic gets weaker and weaker. Now you jump to the enemy and use the high DPS rate of the melee and the bar shifts to the right and strengthens the magic again.
It would be crucial to build in a barrier here.
Only at a bar value of say to the right of 70, you can jump back into magic at all. The other way around, you can only go back into melee when the value in the opposite direction is at 70.
All of these are playful things that can be added to the game to make the phases more fun.

However, my favorite would be the first variant, because it has considerably more potential and is more distinct from other DPS casters.


Many greetings

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Alright, 'RDM should be a melee' thread 3.0.

https://i.imgur.com/lKgbvMw.png

So, let's start out with the obvious: RDM is one of the most popular DPS jobs right now, and it's done so without having OP levels of damage. The truth is most RDMs like playing the job.

You don't have your full dps kit. You literally can't determine what the job flow is from the level 51 experience. At level 51, it costs 50/50 (60/60 AoE at 52) to do your full finisher over just over 2 spell gcds. At level 90, it costs net 31/42 (41/52 AoE) mana to do your full finisher over 5 spell gcds, and every 110 seconds you get 50/50 mana for free.

You melee a LOT more later.

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However, there should be no "wait for global cooldown" with the spells here.

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This is where you get a large amount of mobility from (as a caster!), and where you're able to hit your free damage buttons for free damage. You ARE using Corps-a-corps and engagement for more than just using Redoublementcombo yes?

Once you're 90 the real feel isn't 'Oh no I need a melee phase it's taking soooo looooong' it becomes 'I have a melee phase, do I spend it now or should I hold onto it for a bit' while your cooldowns and fight mechanics cause a good tension to make things interesting.

Also Red Mage is flashy af.

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What should not consume the accumulated magic too quickly, however, so that the ratio of time between close combat and magical ranged combat remains in the average.

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Rip our combat role as a caster. One of the advantages of a caster is that if you're disengaged from a boss for any periods of time you lose nothing for it. If I'm forced to charge a casting burst with ws's, then I'm not a caster, I'm a melee with a spells in my burst phase. You've misunderstood what the point of the melee in the kit is for. It's there to use as one of our movement tools in difficult content, as well as burst-phase stuff. It's not even what the point of your burst is.

RDM gameplay has always been considered to be very accessible and play very well and there seems to be this urge to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' with suggestions for job by ignoring what people like about a job, ignoring the existing kit in the job that solves many of the problems mentioned, and eventually comes to the conclusion 'I want to play Ninja why isn't Red Mage Ninja.'

If you want a melee with a magic-casty spell-based burst phase, that's Ninja. That already exists. Or maybe you're asking for a melee-builder-spender that ends in a big spell--that's reaper.

If you don't like casters, the answer is don't play a caster.

Interesting answer.

I'm just more about making the class fun to play, not about builds and effectiveness in a small area somewhere at the very end.

Since I'm not that familiar with the classes, I just noticed how far the Red Mage is basically a missed opportunity.

No I don't want to play a ninja, it's way too hectic and colorful for me as a rogue class.
I'm not a fan of all classes having magic effects anyway, because that's not good for an RPG and it also devalues the wizard classes like the combat classes trying to merge everything.

But especially with the red mage, I have a completely different basic idea of the playstyle.

Yes, the red mage should already make something with his swordsmanship and here you should drill a bit and expand. But still, there should clearly always be the noticeable break in the fight to the caster.

Exactly this mixture would do the red mage good.
Fast graceful rapier thrusts and swings, gladly with a magical flair, like tracing the rapier movement with magic and symbols, and then back and into the magic phase, which is in no way inferior to fencing combat, but still very different.
Magic effects that then also incorporate the image of a fencing master and don't seem absolutely alien suddenly would also be better.

But first of all, this clumsy kind of magic must be corrected in the red mage. It just doesn't play very well, nor is it really motivatingly fun.

Since I'm not a pro here, but rather fresh come in, I also know nothing of the wishes of other players who have apparently already called for more melee.

But just exactly my unconsumedness, makes me completely unbiased. And therefore I can evaluate the red mage also much more neutrally and I say, and feel immediately, that he could be better than he is from the game fun.

I myself have 30 years of gaming experience, certainly 25 of them strongly focused on role-playing games of any kind. So I recognize very quickly possibilities and have a good feel for these things.

The red mage, can be made much more attractive in any case. The gameplay is much too rigid especially in the area of magic. It just seems bad and for it to be the core aspect, it just doesn't achieve the power, but even behaves very conspicuously like a pure battery that generates juice for melee combat, which can then also be drilled up.
There are many possibilities in the red mage, one does not use them.
And the effects of magic, are partly also too little in relation to the class. There is also a much better design, which makes the name of the class all honor and also affects this interpretation as a fencing mage.

I didn't choose the red mage as my class for nothing. I was thrilled with the idea and still am. However, in practice clearly improvable and with a lot of potential.

This is not meant to sound bad. I am on the side of the red mages. All I see is an unfinished somewhat wooden class that contains far more material than it delivers.

Red mage is my absolute favorite job thus far. Given, I only started in December and finally finished the Endwalker MSQ today, but nothing else has come close yet. Full disclosure though, I absolutely hated it at first until I gritted my teeth and really set myself to learning the rhythm of the job. Now, everything else doesn’t feel as fun.

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Originally Posted by localman

All I see is an unfinished somewhat wooden class that contains far more material than it delivers.

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No, all you see is an incomplete kit.

With all due respect, you've gained only level in the job. We can't have a conversation about how you feel about the flashiness of the finisher for example, because you're missing half the finisher.

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And therefore I can evaluate the red mage also much more neutrally

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Not without experiencing the job. It's impossible to have an objective (or subjective) view of a job without some understanding of the job's function.

But let's address your specific painpoints:

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more reference to a lively melee-magic ratio in a reasonable switching system.

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It's a ranged caster by role. In order to fulfill that role it needs to veer more towards the flexibility that ranged brings to the table, rather than try to 'balance' them both. And the focus on magic is in the name: Red Mage.

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you can't get around making the melee available faster

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This is a fair complaint.

Imagine, however, if your finisher refunded your mana through massive spells. Every time you do a melee attack you get a charge, and when you get 3 charges, you open up a spell combo. That spell combo does a big blap which refunds 11 mana of white or black, then later another blap for 4 of each type of mana, and lastly, a final bloosh which is an AoE line that goes as far as your spell range, and refunds another 4 mana. Suddenly instead of charging 50/50, you're doing a smaller amount, so you can melee more often. And you also have another button that gives you 50/50 immediately.

Wouldn't that solve your problem of not meleeing enough, and also making the melee finisher phase feel more impactful? Not to mention, you're weaving melee attacks when they're up, using Corps-a-Corps and Engagement for them stabs are you not?

Trust me, as a level 90 Red Mage: You're asking for solutions to your problems without considering if those problems are solved through levelling.

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I myself have 30 years of gaming experience, certainly 25 of them strongly focused on role-playing games of any kind.

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Imagine if you were playing FF6, and you're just starting Locke's Scenario and you were to say

"Man, this game needs more mages. There's not enough magic using characters and Terra only gets a small number of spells. This game suffers for a lack of spells and spell-casting characters".

It wouldn't be a valid complaint, would it?

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Originally Posted by localman

The red mage, can be made much more attractive in any case.

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Yes, arguably the most popular job in the game right now has to be made more attarctive. Great reasoning there.

EW Red Mage is in the best position it's ever been, and it got there through incremental changes that streamlined its existing core mechanics and made it less punishing to adapt the rotation to the differing mechanical demands of different encounters. It's okay if you don't personally like the job as it is, but out of all the jobs in the game, it is one of the closest to perfection and rather than suggest making changes to an already great job, maybe you should play a job that is closer to what you want or make suggestions for a new job.

Now if it was a way to make this job a good experience, it's also just another way to make it even better....
With the attitude that further development isn't worth it, yes you would still have the Red Mage from launch and so there it was bad.
And now this way is wrong, if you want to continue it.
I don't really care if other jobs are lagging behind in terms of development. That's a completely different debate that can be conducted in a different context, and quite rightly so.

And before I get attacked and it's no longer a matter of improving the game mechanics, but that I'm just wrong, I'll end the discussion here.
I've been down this defamation road too many times.

In the end, I stand by my statement and quite with good reasons. The Red Mage is much better convertible in its game experience and that should be strived for further. I have outlined my incentives for this in broad strokes.

I apologize for my rather weak English. I am doing all this with a translator.

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Originally Posted by localman

I apologize for my rather weak English. I am doing all this with a translator.

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You're doing your best, we have no problems with ya on this front.

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And before I get attacked and it's no longer a matter of improving the game mechanics, but that I'm just wrong, I'll end the discussion here.
I've been down this defamation road too many times.

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Because you are wrong. Not in that you aren't entitled to your opinion, and I'll be the first to agree that RDM is missing something at or below level 50! It's just that you don't have the experience of later RDM and the ability to see whether RDM has later tools that solve the problems you have with the job. When you identify some problems with the kit, you're being answered by people who know that those questions are answered in later parts of the kit.

All we're trying to suggest is level it, and see if it starts to come together for you.

Yeah...I don't agree with this method of thinking, for several reasons:

1) RDM has always been a mage archetype, and only secondarily a weapon-user. So in general it just doesn't fit RDM's identity.
2) RDM in XIV still only has like 4 melee moves (plus a melee-ish Cone AoE), everything else is solidly in a caster role. So functionally it doesn't fit RDM's job fantasy in XIV.
3) RDM in XIV's "unique" niche is defined by its "red magic" spells. While yes this includes the aforementioned melee attacks, this also includes Jolt, Scatter/Impact, Scorch, Resolution, Acceleration, and Magick Barrier. All of which solidly place it in "more" of a caster/healer role than a melee role, and are easily the more distinct part of RDM's kit identity versus the "enchanted slashy slash" that at minimum is also shared by DRK and SAM, if not also PLD, GNB, and perhaps other melee jobs.
4) We are lacking in options for casters as it is. It is clearly *hard* for the devs to come up with casters in XIV that each have a distinct identity when so much offensive magick in FF is elemental-based. RDM shines as a much-needed "blood magic" archetype alongside generic elementalists BLM and SMN. Take that away and casters don't have interesting job fantasies like SGE or AST, unless they want to play BLU.

Why do people post job feedback below max level? You literally don’t know what you’re talking about. May as well talk about how poorly written a movie is based on what you see in a trailer.

This version of Red Mage truly feels like it is one that is actually perfected.

I see no reason to flip Red Mage on its head seeing as the job is in an amazing position, minus enchanted reprise not getting adjusted for new mana costs. Red Mage fits me like a glove and is my raid job. Lower levels often feel like something's missing because the rotations are quite basic but it gets much better at the high levels.

Though it's interesting what I read from page 1 if I am understanding this correctly: "you can't get around making the melee available faster" is blatantly false. At level 60 and as of Endwalker that availability is no longer a problem. Manafication is the level 60 capstone skill and provides 50/50 mana right off the start, allowing for a smoother and real opener.

This thread is a good example of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.". Fix enchanted reprise cost though SE thanks.

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Originally Posted by localman

But just exactly my unconsumedness, makes me completely unbiased. And therefore I can evaluate the red mage also much more neutrally and I say, and feel immediately, that he could be better than he is from the game fun.

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At the risk of sounding blunt/rude, this is nonsense. This makes you the least qualified to talk about Red Mage. This has been my DPS job since its release TWO EXPANSIONS ago.

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Originally Posted by localman

I'm just more about making the class fun to play, not about builds and effectiveness in a small area somewhere at the very end.

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While it's worth noting that "fun" is a subjective judgement, I personally find EW Red Mage it be one of the most enjoyable jobs in the game. And given the parse statistics, quite a number of others enjoy the job as well (and that's despite the fact that, statistically, it's not exactly an "amazing" DPS job from an output perspective). It's highly flexible, dynamic, flashy, mobile, and packed to the gills with group utility.

It's also, as pointed out here by others, extremely difficult to take you serious in your evaluation of the job at only level 51. I personally enjoyed Red Mage more than Ninja when I picked it up at 50, but only just. I actually swapped to Dancer at 60 because I was getting bored with Red Mage. It wasn't until I caught my Red Mage back up and tandem leveled Red Mage alongside Dancer during Shadowbringers that I swapped to just adoring Red Mage, and Dancer ended up being the one I had to go back and finish leveling to 80! Once you get Manafication and the spell finishers at 70+ (especially with the new level 90 superlaser Resolution), it's an incredibly fun job. You go into your melee combo far more often (on average you're starting a melee combo every ~30s, with the combo itself then taking ~13s, so your "filler" time is only about ~half of your time spent), and the melee combo itself is longer, more impactful, and way flashier. All around, it's an exceptionally well-designed job as of Endwalker, with 6.0 cutting nearly all of the remaining clunky "fat" off the job.

To be honest, I still don't like playing my Red Mage in lower-synced content, though it's admittedly quite a bit better about syncing down than, say, Reaper or Black Mage.

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

At the risk of sounding blunt/rude, this is nonsense. This makes you the least qualified to talk about Red Mage. This has been my DPS job since its release TWO EXPANSIONS ago.

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This. While having new perspectives on things is valuable, and putting "you must be this high" type signs on which opinions are acceptable risks creating an echo chamber, it's also remarkably presumptuous for someone to assert that a job they've spent maybe an hour or two playing, using only the base starting kit, is a job they are qualified to give not just useful and actionable feedback about at the overarching endgame design of that job, but feedback that is implied to be superior to those that have played the job through endgame and understand how the full kit fits together.

No offense at all intended, but as others have stated it really sort of sounds like you either don't understand the class or maybe the class as it exists just isn't what you want in Red Mage. That's perfectly understandable. Heck, until EW, Summoner wasn't at all what I wanted in Summoner. Not to dig that argument up as I know there are many who don't like new SMN and/or did love old SMN, but old SMN just wasn't for me. I can understand liking some elements of a class, or my idea of a class, and not having it jive with how the class actually works in the game.

One of my personal wants for a new job is a rune knight or spell blade. Essentially a caster that fights in melee range with elemental magic augmenting their attacks. But that's not RDM, and especially not FF14 RDM.